Sue Swaffield

University of Cambridge

Sue Swaffield

University of Cambridge

Biography

Sue Swaffield’s teaching and research interests are within the fields of educational leadership, school improvement and assessment. Leadership for learning, critical friendship and assessment for learning are particular interests – and often interconnect. Her work in Higher Education builds on two decades of teaching in a variety of schools and serving as a local authority adviser.

Sue is a member of the Educational Leadership, Policy, Evaluation and Change academic group in the Faculty of Education, and a co-founder of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network. She also belongs to the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) centre, and the Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research (CEDiR) group.

The Leadership for Learning (LfL) framework and principles that are so prominent in Sue’s work were developed through the seven country LfL Carpe Vitam project that she co-directed, and have subsequently been adopted in many contexts around the world, including by the Ghana Education Service. Sue’s career long involvement with Assessment for Learning has included research and development projects large and small, a wide range of publications, and numerous presentations, courses and workshops. She studies and promotes critical friendship particularly in relation to school leaders and school improvement, and among students.

Sue teaches on the Doctoral, Masters and Practitioner Professional Development programmes, co-ordinating the Educational Leadership and School Improvement MEd and MPhil, as well as the Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Assessment and Examinations.

She is a past president and honorary life member of AAIA (Association for Achievement and Improvement through Assessment), Associate Editor of the journal ‘Professional Development in Education’, and on the editorial advisory board of ‘Assessment in Education: principles, policy and practice’.

Sue is a Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, a Syndic of Cambridge University Press, and Adjunct Research Fellow in the Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Brisbane.